In the copying machine business, accounting is generally done on the basis of a total printed sheet count acquired from an image forming device such as a copying machine. For example, generally, the printed sheet counts of a plurality of image forming devices installed at a customer's location are totalized in each specific department. On the basis of this information, the printing cost is distributed to the departments (e.g., prior art reference 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-358891).
However, in an image forming device that cannot save a status such as a printed sheet count at a given point of time, if printing is executed during acquisition of information about the printed sheet count, the total printed sheet count totalized in each department does not match the total printed sheet count to be used for accounting. This may pose a problem in, e.g., cost distribution.
For example, assume a service to provide accounting information of each department to a customer. If the total printed sheet count of image forming devices does not coincide with the sum of printed sheet counts of the respective departments, the accounting information itself is not reliable.
As one reason for this, an information processing apparatus for executing accounting can manage a large number of departments. For example, assume that the number of manageable departments is about 1,000 at maximum, and about 0.1 sec is required to acquire the counter value of a department. In this case, a time of about 100 sec is required to acquire the counter values of all the 1,000 departments. There is a high probability that the counter values will change as new print processing is executed in the image forming devices during counter value acquisition. A true total printed sheet count is not obtained, because the total printed sheet count totalized in the departments does not match the total printed sheet count which is acquired from the image forming devices to be used for accounting, resulting in lack of accuracy.
Another form can also be assumed in which the sum of a printed sheet count totalized in a plurality of departments and the printed sheet count to be used for accounting at a certain point of time is held in the image forming device as fixed data, and a management device is notified of the held data. This technique may solve the above-described problem. However, various kinds and models of image forming devices are assumed to be managed by the management device, and the image forming devices do not always all satisfy the assumed specifications.